Bristlebeak

295 Million Years Post-Establishment

The cooling and more arid climate spreading across all of Serinaustra has brought about the rapid disappearance of some 90% of its once forested land. Of the trees that still remain, such as those that still persist in the far south within the austral swamp, most are now stunted by wind and winter temperatures, reaching only a few meters and growing more like a thicket of tall bushes. Such habitats can support few tall browsers, and nearly all of the giant giraffowl that once called this continent home are extinct. Only the bristlebeak, a descendant of the razorcrest, still remains.

It is an inhabitant of a different forest remnant, located in the far east. The grand seawall, which provides shelter to the land in the face of worsening oceanic storms, is one of the last living seawalls, and the largest sky island reef left in the world. But it is not in good shape. It's northern half is dead and eroding, a wall of concrete failing a little more with every storm, its vegetation scorched by increasing temperatures at the equator. Even further south, much of its sea-facing side is now functionally dead, the vegetation that it once supported ripped apart by the frigid winter winds. The inward side, though, is still protected. In its shadow a microclimate is created, warmer than the surroundings in winter and out of the wind, but shaded from the sun in summer. The whole western wall of the ridge is still alive and maintained by the cementrees and their symbiotic colonies of ants, and below them a small forest of dancing trees still grows at ground level in their sheltering vicinity. It's a narrow band of trees and vegetation between two vast seas - one of saltwater, the other of grass that has now spread from east to west in the new southern steppe.

Bristlebeaks have few enemies now, at least when grown. Their ancient crossjaw predators have not survived to this new, bleak era alongside them, for they are now too rare to provide enough to sustain such a hunter. And even their young are now well-protected, for bristlebeaks live in closely-knit herds which are multi-generational and include members of every age from newborn to fully adult. It is a remarkable thing to witness as up to a hundred juveniles and adults travel closely on the ground, traveling from one feeding site along the seawall to the next as they browse all the vegetation within their reach, and must move on to allow it to regenerate. They communicate with one another in a roar of noise, from the deep rumbles of the adults, to the clucking of adolescents, to a deafening din of gull-like squawks from the youngest, still small enough to fly above the herd yet still staying near to them. Flocks of newborns and yearlings only as big as seagulls and geese fly amongst their gigantic elders. With few other suitable habitats left, it does not benefit most of them to disperse widely and far away from their birthplace, and so they have formed a dependence upon the adults. They do not yet eat the foliage of the trees, but land to feed on insects stirred up by the adult's activities and on parasites that cling to their backs, fulfilling a cleaning service in exchange for protection from their kin. They exhibit a ring of bristles around their mouths, like whiskers, that serve to extend their gape, funneling flying insects toward their beak as they fly around and feed. When aerial predators come, these winged chicks seek shelter clinging to the adult's bodies, especially their heads. Above the adult's beaks, the small bristles of the chick have grown into long quills arranged in a crown-like feather crest in front of the towering bill horn; no longer used for feeding, they are now both decorative and defensive, hiding their babies from birds of prey. Small ground predators that could still catch the young in their first few years of life after they lose their power of flight and their wing feathers wear away - clever hunters like slaughtersprinters or sylvansparks - must now face a gauntlet of giant, ornery adults who can kick and stomp anything smaller than themselves to death. For now, this incredible social cooperation, the most advanced of all the giraffowl, has kept the bristlebeak alive in a changing world and allowed them to survive where most have not. But there is one enemy that even this crafty animal may not be able to fight off in the end. Erosion.

Like coral reefs in the sea, what remains of the seawall here still provides home to many endemic species that can now live nowhere else, as well as a stopping point for travelers from far away that come to breed or to feed around it. But it is a shrinking refuge, wearing away a little from its seaward side with every winter wind gust and each summer hurricane, for no living cementrees remain there to rebuild damaged sections. And every year, this haven retreats further south and further inland. Occasionally it erodes all the way through, and even the thin inner wall of living cementrees is destabilized and collapses. A hole appears through which the cold wind reaches and from which the forest flees, leaving wide gaps of wind-swept grass and miles of blowing sand dunes that the bristlebeak must cross to reach pockets of forest that still remain. This is still the home of the last great giraffowl browser, a tenacious species that survives by coming together as a team and combining all of their strengths, to become something greater than any individual could be alone. But for how long they can hold out now, as their home slowly falls away like sand in the hourglass, is uncertain. However long their story lasts, they are a success story: they have already lasted far longer than most of the forest creatures of the hothouse era, and they have changed with the world around them, finding solutions for life's new challenges.

It is likely that within the next half million years, the rest of the seawall will fail, and the final habitat on Serinaustra for the bristlebeak will disappear. But all may not be lost even then. Though some 90% of bristlebeak chicks stay with their parent's herd when born, some chicks do leave, traveling hundreds of miles away, often entirely alone. We cannot be sure why, what motivates their travel or what they seek. Perhaps, they sacrifice themselves in the small chance that somewhere out there still remains another habitat that could support them. Another, distant haven that might provide longer sanctuary. In the near future, perhaps a small group of these intrepid explorers will set out away from the seawall and out over the sea leaving Serinaustra behind. A favorable wind may guide them, and they might find themselves on foreign shores. A herd of strange animals on a trek toward greener pastures could provide a lifeline to the wayward chicks, which could rest upon them like they might otherwise have perched on their own kind.

Maybe, their story might continue after all, in another refuge half a world away...